


The mechanics of the heart

by DeliveryHomo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, M/M, References to Illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeliveryHomo/pseuds/DeliveryHomo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is just a boy like a any other. He has a life like any other, in a town like any other. But everything changes when he suffers an almost fatal heart attack. Before a long time being hospitalized, he has to be transferred to a new school for disabled kids. Even though his constant negative, he will have to learn to atapt to his new situation, overcome difficulties, and keep going on with his life. Based off the game "Katawa Shoujo", by Four Leaf Studio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [La mecánica del corazón](https://archiveofourown.org/works/988298) by [GayTendency (DeliveryHomo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeliveryHomo/pseuds/GayTendency). 



> Important note: This is a translation of my work (originally in spanish) "La mecánica del corazón". I translated it because I want more people to read and enjoy this work I'm enjoying so much. However, I'm not a native english speaker, so there might be some grammar, spelling, or word ussage mistakes, for which I do really apologize. I will try to detect and correct them right away, but I'm sorry if someone's eyes get hurt because of this.
> 
> This said, this work was inspired by the game Katawa Shoujo, which I highly recommend.
> 
> And I have to thank a lot my friend Elii for beta-reading the english version and checking all she can get.
> 
> Tags, pairing tags, and rating will change when certain events happen in the story.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this story, so thanks for giving it a try!

Snow was one of the strangest things you could ever see in Shingashina. It barely snowed a few days during the year, usually in middle of February, and when it happened the temperature was never high enough for it to pile up. Before it even touching the ground, the snow crystals would already had melted, leaving just a similar trail to rain on the floor.

Nevertheless, that year was being strangely cold. People would have to go out with long sleeves, jackets and coats, even at the beginning of December. Something especially unusual on a town that seemed to live on a micro-clime of endless calmness, all days of the year.

The sky had been unusually cloudy during the week before Christmas Eve, when happy chorus signing carols in your door and cheerful Christmas greetings with your neighbors became a part of your everyday, even if you only were going to the end of your street to buy bread.

As if taken straight from a fairytale, the morning of Christmas the city woke up with more snow on the street than more of the grown-ups remembered to ever have seen. The children went out their houses even before opening their presents, and before it was 10 a.m., there was already many snowmen in front of every house, and kids throwing snowballs at each other.

“Come on, Mikasa! Snow’s going to melt down if we don’t hurry!”

Just a few steps away from me, mom throw me one of those glances she always did, in which I couldn’t tell if the was reproaching me for being too childish, or if she was happy for me because I, for the first time, was excited for going out.

“Nor Mikasa or you are going anywhere until you’re fully warm.” The Scottish-themed scarf turned a third time around Mikasa’s neck. “Look at this cold! You’re going to come back with a pneumonia if you don’t put another jacket on, Eren.”

“I’m fine, mom!”

Though my coat and gloves were nothing compared to the three layers of jackets, scarfs, coats and socks Mikasa was wearing in front of me. Between the two of us, she’d always been the one with the strongest health. But I was also the one who put more resistance when mom tried to put me on more coats of what a human being could carry before melding down of heat in Siberia.

“Great, I think you’re alright now.” With a smile worthy of an artist contemplating their masterpiece, mom stood up to see Mikasa. Even though she almost surpassed our mother in height, right now she seemed a lot smaller and inoffensive than she normally used to. Although when she turned back to look at me, her eyes still looked the same as always, between her messy hair underneath the bonnet and the scarf. “Eren!” This time, her call made me look back to mom. “If you’re cold, come back and take another coat. And don’t get into trouble. Mikasa, look after him, please.”

“Okay.” Mikasa nodded. Then she turned towards me. Before she stepped a little closer, I looked to mom again.

“Have fun!”

With the sight of her warm smile, I opened the door and faced the snow.

The second I stepped outside our house, I felt my heart beat with emotion. The snowflakes falling and pilling up on me, the kids playing with the snow, many of my neighbors and schoolmates making snowballs, children making angels of snow… It felt like stepping outside that little place you could barely call a town and entering a Christmas tale. Someone, only a few houses away from me, had started playing Christmas carols to increase the Christmas spirit.

“Let’s go, Mikasa!”

Without any hesitation, I took her hand and start running out of our house’s door, where mom greeted us waving her hand. I could hear the sound of the snow crushing under our feet, but it didn’t took it too many time for them to almost disappear. That was possibly the most magic experience I had ever lived on my entire, boring and normal life.

“Eren, are you alright? Don’t you feel cold?” That moment, I realized I was still holding Mikasa’s hand. I let her go rapidly, feeling ashamed of how childish I should have seemed at that moment.

“You too? I’m fine!” I affirmed. “Most importantly, look at all this snow! Had you ever seen so many snow all together?”

Most likely, I supposed. Before she came to live with us, Mikasa used to live much near the mountains, in one of those places where this kind of scenarios where nothing new on winter days. But she didn’t say anything, be it because it had been so long ago she didn’t remembered, or she simply didn’t have anything to say.

I, however, was still delighted.

Maybe I wasn’t be the most social person in the world. In fact, the only one I had to enjoy that snow day for the first time in my live was my foster sister. But the sight of snow in front of my eyes felt like I had been transported to an entirely new world, to the point that I wouldn’t have minded to join the boys who were creating fortes of snow just a few houses away of me, the ones who would usually fight with me and run when Mikasa appeared on the rescue.

But I didn’t use that strange opportunity to socialize with other people. Snowing or not, I was still myself. Instead, I dragged Mikasa behind me and started building a snowman. While we were finishing the head, I made a snowball on my hand. Before we spent half an hour out in the snow, I was starting to feel my fingers colder under my gloves. But I wasn’t planning on going back home for warmer ones, especially before seeing mom looking out the window to confirm we were alright.

Instead, I pushed the snowball against my hands until it became consistent enough to roll without falling apart, and threw it to Mikasa, aiming for her back. The first thing I received from her was a stare that made the whole morning feel hot as a summer evening. Before I could even realize, a snowball bumped into my chest with such strength it threw me to the ground.

In that very moment, when I fell into the snow that cushioned the blow, I felt an acute pain on the chest. Unconsciously, I took a hand to the source of the pain, but before I could even realize Mikasa was gazing at me, worrying she had hurt me, the feeling had already vanished. I smiled and stood up.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” I said while shaking out the snow of the back part of my trousers. My sister sighed and grinned in relief. She seemed to be constantly worried about me, but that was something I’d already got used to. “More importantly, where have you learn to shoot that way?”

Before she could answer, I bended and made another ball to throw it once again, this time aiming on the same zone she’d hit me before. I could see how she frowned under the bonnet and picked up the snow on her chest. She gazed at me with cold, deadly eyes. But I still could sense the sparkle of a grin under her scarf just before I started running as fast as I could, dodging her shots and laughing out hard.

And suddenly, the pain in my heart came back again, harder this time. It made me fall to my knees on the ground, making the ball I had on my hands crash on my clothes. I took both hands to my chest, as if it would make the pain vanish again. Hoping for it to make the pain disappear magically just as it had before.

“Eren?”

My head had started spinning around when I heard Mikasa call out my name. My heart had started bombing incessantly. As if it wished to go out, break my ribs and my chest, and melt with the snow before my eyes.

“Eren!?”

I heard steps coming for me before I could realize I had completely fell down to the ground. The children around me were still playing, but I could hear someone coming closer to me. To the moment Mikasa was with me, I had already closed my eyes. The pain, and the fast beatings of my heart made me push my hand against my jacked until it hurted.

In this moment, before Mikasa could call someone or seek for help, my heart suddenly stopped.

Everything around me turned into darkness. A darkness more powerfull than the feeling of closed eyes. Something much more intense, hollower than any kind of darkness I had ever experimented.

Mikasa’s hands holding me were the last thing I could feel before losing consciousness.

* * *

 

After my heart attack, I spent four months on the same room.

The first days were the strangest ones. I would wake up on the middle of the evening, talk a bit with my parents (nothing more than a few short sentences, really), and then came back to sleep for hours. Or minutes. O a whole day. I hated looking to my side and seeing I was connected to a sick quantity of medical devices, emitting lights, sounds and numbers that just piled up with no sense or order at all.

During the first month, the night table of my bed was always filled with flowers and cards, sent by my classmates. Most likely in some kind of project created by the class president. I knew I didn’t have anyone close enough in the school, or even the whole city, to really care about me getting well, instead of my family. Some days, I would even receive some visits, in which my classmates asked me how I was feeling. Most of these visits, however, ended up with me having to show the scar on my chest, result of an operation that had happened while I was still unconscious and under the effects of the anesthesia.

Eventually, the cards and flowers stopped coming, and my night table became just filled with medical instructions and a photo of my family. I didn’t take it personally, not even a bit. After all, everyone in class had way more important things to worry about than my health or my recuperation.

The only people who visited me every day were my family. Sometimes dad couldn’t come because of his work, or other times mom had too many things to take care about. But Mikasa was almost always there, with me. Even when she had to study, she would carry her books and studied sitting in silence on the small visitors chair in the corner, or in the bed next to mine, which kept being empty for all the time I was there.

Their visits were the only thing that would really help me difference a day to another. If Mikasa fell asleep, it was weekend. If the three of them came, it was probably a holiday. And if no one came at all, it was just an ordinary day like any other.

During all the time I spent in, I would always repeat the same question to the cardiologist. And the answer was never really clear. “Soon. Don’t worry about it”; “Before you can even realize”; “When you get a little bit better”.

My father was the one on charge of telling me what happened, translating the confusing medical words. It seemed I suffered of a chronic heart disease that affected the cardiac rhythm. I think it was something like “chronic heart arrhythmia” and “congenital heart muscle deficiency”. It was a sick word, something I really didn’t want to remember. The kind of word you don’t want to be in the same room with. I decided I would just not think about it more than necessary. I didn’t really understand the explanation, but it was clear the fact that my heart attack had been fatal. The doctors were really astonished I had lived seventeen years without any other kind of episode or problem.

Of course, it didn’t have a cure.

Sometimes, I would even think if it hadn’t been better if I had just died during my attack. Although, when I saw the mark of preoccupation on the eyes of my mother, and felt the sincere way she and Mikasa cared about me, I felt sick with myself for my egoist wish, and went back to living my days without any motivation at all.

I couldn’t really do anything else than staying in my room, reading the books Mikasa or the nurses gave me from the small hospital library. That was actually my only hobby. Watching TV would just simply make me feel even more far away from the outside world, and it’s not like the quality of the monitor of my room felt like it would help me watching something without any interruption at all. When I stood out of the bed, it would be just to check I still remembered how to walk around the room.

Finally, four months after my heart episode, my family and the cardiologist who took care of me appeared with “good news”, all together in my room.

“We have good news, Eren” The doctor draw a big, closed-mouthed smile on his face. He had a thin paper on his hand. Behind him, my family seemed to be all dressed up elegantly just for the occasion. My mother was smiling full of hope, my father looked at me with the nearest thing to a smile I had seen on him for a really long time. Just Mikasa seemed strangely off. “I’m happy to say your heart is now much stronger than when you checked in. You can go home.”

My eyes opened with shining excitement. I tried to open my mouth and say something, but nothing came out of my mouth. It didn’t matter at all, because I was going to get out. The endless days inside that place were going to finally come to an end, and I was going to be able to go back to my ordinary life.

“However… Your parents and I have been talking, and we have decided it’d be better for you to not come back to your old school.”

This time, the excitement was replaced by confusion. And I could see Mikasa look away from the conversation.

“What!?” I yelled as I felt my voice fill the whole room. Without realizing, I had stood up so rapidly, my head was now spinning. I took a hand to my forehead, trying to stop the movement of everything around me.

“Calm down, Eren” That was all I heard my father say.

Calm down? They were telling me to calm down? For a brief moment, I had thought I could finally come back to my old life. Without problems, without hear attacks, without “arrhythmia”, without being homeschooled. Maybe I didn’t have friends, or the only person I could actually talk to for more than five minutes was Mikasa, nor I wasn’t exactly the best student, or the one with the better assistance record. But that didn’t mean I wanted to vanish and never come back.

The doctor gazed at my parents with raised eyebrows. They sighed.

“Eren…” That was the tone my mother used when she wanted to calm me down. Especially when she knew I was mad at something and I was wrong.

“You see, Eren…” This time, the doctor was the one who continued speaking. “It’s true your heart is now stronger than when you had your episode. But it’s not strong enough. And we have to prevent any possibility of you suffering another attack. You understand that, right?”

He advanced a few steps and gave me the paper he had in his hands. I didn’t really care about it until he finished talking. “So, in order of prevention, you will be needing a few medicaments…”

That was when I looked into the thin paper I had in my hands. Thousands and thousands of words I had never seen pilled in front of my eyes. I even doubted some of them were even real. It was a long list, so long it made me feel dizzy, and just become nothing more than a bunch of random black letters, pilled one up another.

All of these, every day, for the rest of my life?

“I know it may seem long, but you should consider that your situation may evolve with time. And there’s always some development on new medicaments. It wouldn’t be strange seeing that list reduce with time.”

I felt my hands shaking. On a desperate try, I stood my head high to look at my father. He also was a doctor. If there was any other way, he’d interrupt now, on the last moment, like he’d always do.

But he stayed silent.

My gaze moved now to Mikasa, who had been away of us all until she came into the room. When she felt I was staring at her, she just looked away, like there wasn’t anything she could say. It seemed like if it hurt and affected her way more than it did to me.

“As you can see, your medicaments and your situation wouldn’t let you be on a regular school like the one you used to” The voice of the doctor carried on, but I didn’t even care anymore.

“Your father and I are too busy to have you homeschoolarised” I could feel the pain these words produced on my mother’s voice. But at the same time, I could also feel a tiny bit of hope on her. “That why we’ve been thinking about various possibilities, and…”

“We’ve decided it’d be better to you if you went to Sina.” My father said the first sentence I really listened to that morning. “It’s a school for kids like you, with difficult situations. It has its own dorms, a nurse staff that works twenty four hours a day, and it’s very close to an important hospital in the zone.”

I felt my moth wide open by his words. I wasn’t going back to my old life. I wasn’t going to be homeschoolarised. I wasn’t even going back to Shingashina. I was going to be thrown on a boarding school for kids with disabilities, in who-knew-where.

It really sounded like they just wanted to get rid of me now that I’d become a bother.

“You want to have me interned!?” Once again, my own scream made myself dizzy. I was yelling more than I had talked the last four months. “No, no fucking way! I’m not going!”

“Eren, _please_ …”

“It’s for your own good, Eren. Sina is like any other school, just that you could do anything you want to do without having to worry about your health.”

Like any other school my ass. If it was like any ordinary school, you wouldn’t have mentioned the hospital or the nurse service like additional selling points.

“I know many people who have done very important things after graduating from Sina. Even Paralympic athletes.”

“A colleague of mine works there, so we went gave it a visit. We’re sure you will like it, and you’d get used to it very easily.”

The conversation had now become some kind of dialogue between the doctor and my father. I didn’t even bother listening to them. Mom and Mikasa wouldn’t just agree on that. They wouldn’t let me trapped like a freak without saying a word.

“Mom…!” I almost begged her to say something.

But instead, she just pushed her shoulders up and looked at me with one of her glances. One of those what made me feel sickly guilty hours after for being a total ass. And I was sure that this time, it’d have the same efficacy.

“Mikasa…!” She was now my only hope.

Even if it supposed calling my big sister to the rescue, like if I was just a little baby. I needed her help.

For the first time since we had started the conversation, she looked at me and spoke.

“Eren” Her voice was monotone as always. But there was something on her look that stuck in my heart like a knife. “Listen to mom and dad. They’re right.”

Even Mikasa was on their side. Mikasa, who had always been there protecting me. Mikasa, who didn’t mind reaching ridiculous extremes in order to me to be safe. Mikasa, who simply followed what mom always asked her. To take care of me.

I felt my heart stop. But this time, it wasn’t because of a heart attack, nor for that disease whose name I couldn’t and didn’t want to remember. This time, it was because of the hard feeling of finally crashing into reality.

I was sick. It didn’t have a cure. And I had to be interned with other sick kids like me.

I crushed my teeth and lowered my gaze to the ground. There was simply nothing I could do. I couldn’t fight back. The decision was already been made without me. I had no choice.

“There are many days of family visit, so we can go and see you whenever we have free time. You can also call us whenever you want.

I nodded lightly to the words of my mother, who felt desperate to change the expression on my face.

At this point, there was nothing I could to. Nothing more than lowering my gaze and nod like a robot.

During four months, I had been living in a state that could barely been described as life. But now, now I felt they had taken what was left of me, the tiny bit that it was, and they had took it away from me before even asking if I did care.

For the first time in four months, I was feeling really tired.


	2. Habits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must say, I'm not really sure how American schools works. So I'm sorry if there's something on Sina that looks more Japanese (or Spanish) than how it should be.  
> We have character introductions on this chapter! And very obvious hints from most of the secondary pairings. I'm sorry it took so long to translate, but I've been busy, so I couldn't help!  
> As always, thanks to Elii (ApplepiePenguin) for checking my translation. If there's any kind of typo, grammatical error or whatever, please let me know.  
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

The last days I spent at home flew fast like a bullet. Things like packing my things or acquiring a credit card so I could buy whatever I needed to without problems happened faster than would probably do to anyone starting to live alone. It was kind of funny, actually. Most people my age dreamt of entering college, leaving their parent’s house and starting living on their own. But I, myself, still hoped for the moment when someone told me my school transference had been cancelled for entering so late on the school year.

The worst thing was saying goodbye. During the two days I had between leaving the hospital and going to Sina, my parents were so busy that they didn’t have much time to tell me to be a good boy and that they were going to miss me. I couldn’t even make my own baggage, because my parents were afraid it would be dangerous due to my condition. I understood that coming from mom, but my father was a supposed to be a doctor, and he had listened to the cardiologist when he said I could basically do the same I did before my attack, as long as it didn’t mean a long time of exercise of hitting my chest.

All I could do was stay sit on the coach and watch TV with Mikasa.

And I couldn’t handle the silence between her and me. It was awkward. No, it was much more than awkward. It was strange. We didn’t exactly have the most talkative brother-sister relationship on the world, but we never had that kind of silence for two whole days. It was like if she were trying to stay away from me, even when I’d try starting a new conversation. Asking for help. Begging her to not make me feel like they were just getting rid of me.

I had spent way too much time hospitalized to recover easily the sense of time, so when we got out of the car I couldn’t have tell if it’d been a long trip or a short one. I knew we had to sleep on the road, but details like the time we’d left Shingashina or arrive to Stohess, the city where my new school was, were things I didn’t control at all.

Nevertheless, during the whole ride Mikasa had been in complete silence. Just holding my hand tight sometimes. On the other side, however, my parents were still trying to cheer me up in any way possible. They’d talk about the two pools the school had, one for the summer and other for winter, for all the students who wanted (or _could_ , I added on my mind) swim or liked aquatic sports, or about all the places near the school I could go to spend time with my friends.

Honestly, I had serious doubts about me making friends. I wasn’t really what you’d call a social person on a “normal” school, so I didn’t really think it was going to be any easier on a school for “special” kids.

When we’d finally get out the car, the first thing that caught my attention was a huge iron gate. On the right, the words “Sina High School” were engraved on an iron plate. Simple and efficient. The gate was closed, so I supposed school had already started, and maybe I could spend that day doing nothing. However, my father opened it without hesitation.

“We’ll take your things to your room. When you’ve finished your classes, just go and ask the receptionist."

I nodded and turned to look at my mother, who was taking my second baggage of the trunk. When she realized I was staring at her, she left my thing on the ground and hugged me firmly. I had the feeling she did it more carefully that she’d have a year before.

“You can call us whenever you want, Eren. We’ll come where on holidays, and we can go on a trip all together on summer…”

For the first time since I’d left the hospital, my mother’s words made me feel something similar to sadness, while I raised my arms to hug her back, trying to comfort her – and comfort myself.

“I-It’s alright, mom! I’ll be fine” I lied “Now stop it, if someone sees me I’ll lose the zero popularity I already have here!”

Mom giggled and let me go. She stopped a moment to dry the tears on her face, and then gave me warm and quiet tug on an ear. That was her very own way to tell me she knew I was lying, that I was trying to make myself sound like an adult.

After that, she picked my baggage again and walked with my father, crossing the big iron gate.

“Mikasa, please pick the last one. And Eren, you should go straight to class. Your homeroom teacher must be waiting for you."

We both nodded. Then, we looked at each other. And there, again, the awkward silence.

“Mikasa…”

I tried to say something, anything, but it was obvious I didn’t know what to say. I had never been too good at saying goodbye, especially when I _didn’t want_ to say goodbye.

Before I could even react, she held me tightly in her arms. Except for holding each other’s hands, that was the biggest physical contact we’d had in various months. Since the first week I’d been awake on the hospital, we hadn’t been close to each other, and much less hugged.

“Eren…” I heard the tone she always used when she said my name, right on my ear. She let me go a little bit, and turned her head. Like if making sure mom and dad were far enough to not hear us. Then she looked back at me, with a terribly serious gaze. “You can come back whenever you want. If you don’t like people here, or if you’re feeling bad being in this place, I’ll talk to them.”

I blinked for a moment, analysing her words. I would have liked to laugh, or at least smile, but I knew for real it wasn’t a joke. When I said she’d get to ridiculous extremes to protect me, I wasn’t exaggerating.

“Mikasa…” I sighed. What could I say? Definitely, not anything like ‘I’ll be fine’ or ‘I’ll get used to it’. These words might work with mom, to calm her down, but not with Mikasa. Especially because I couldn’t really say if I was telling the truth or not. “I’ll survive.”

I could see the tiny start of a grin of her thin lips. She was wearing the same ref scarf I had given her on her birthday the first year she’d been with us. Even though she had grown up so much it seemed ridiculously small on her. For a brief moment, I had the urge to stroke her head.

“If you need anything, call me. Or send me a message. Like, if there’s anything you don’t want mom to know…”

I smiled a bit and sighed. I was going to miss this, having her following me every day, making sure I didn’t get into trouble. That feeling suddenly made me feel a bit sad, but I didn’t say it.

“Eren, Mikasa! If you don’t hurry, class are gonna end!” That was my mother, who seemed to had time to carry the baggage to the dorms and come back for us while we were talking. “Eren, do you need us to show you the way to the classroom building?”

“I think I’ll find it by myself.” I shook my head. My mother looked at me for a moment, and then bent down to kiss me on the cheek.

“We love you, Eren.” She whispered and I smiled. But I also felt my face turn somehow red. It had been a long time since we last had this kinds of “family moments”, and I wasn’t exactly used to them.

“Good luck.” This time, it was Mikasa. “And don’t get into trouble”.

“Thanks, I’ll try.” I responded.

After looking back for the last time to stare at me, she disappeared with my mother – our mother – on the way to the dorms.

When her silhouette completely disappeared, a hollow feeling filled my heart. I turned back to see the car I’d just arrive in, and then gazed again to the big iron gate, opened just one side to let me in. That was my last chance of going back to my old life. Even if there wasn’t really any life I could go back to anyways.

I clenched y fist and stepped inside Sina.

The first thing that caught my eye immediately was the green. That place didn’t look like a high school at all. Instead, it was more like a big park where they had casually let some brick buildings, with a very conventional look. All I could see was surrounded by more and more trees.

I remembered then, how operation rooms on hospitals were supposed to be green, because green was a calming colour. That ruined fast most of the magic of nature around me. Yeah, I couldn’t forget for even a moment that I was on a special school for disabled children. And I was now part of these children.

The first building I saw just entering the place had a big sign, marked “Classrooms Building”, in English and braille. Well, at least I wasn’t going to get lost with that. With somehow doubtful steps, I walked forward the main door. There was no turning back now, I couldn’t stop when I had already make all the way there.

Before my eyes I saw a big hallway, way wider than the ones you’d see on normal school, and with many stairs and ramps. Just like outside, there wasn’t anyone but me. Or so I thought, until I saw a tall man standing not very far away, so I decided I’d just ask him.

“Ahm…”

Before I could even say anything, the man seemed to notice my presence. The next thing I knew was that his face was almost touching mine, and he was… sniffling me?

Just where on earth had I just stepped into?

“Eh…” I tried to catch his attention. But before I could start talking, the tall man sat up and smiled.

“Jaeger, right?”

I nodded, still confused and trying to understand what had just happened.

“I’m Mike Zakarius. Your homeroom and biology teacher.” This said, the turned around and started walking toward the stairs closer to us, checking I was following him. “The first thing you should do is go to the nursery… But the class is waiting for you, so you’ll go later.”

I nodded a few times while I kept walking behind him. As we advanced on the stairs until we got to the second floor, I saw there weren’t lockers anywhere. To make it easier the moving with wheelchairs, probably.

Before I could even realize, Mr Zakarius had stopped so suddenly I almost crashed into his back. I raised my head to look at him, and at the sign outside of the classroom, above of our heads.

‘2B’.

I supposed I had to memorize the location of that classroom, at least for biology class. When I looked back again, the teacher opened the door and entered, me following him.

The classroom didn’t seem any different from your typical high school class. A green board in both sides of the room, big windows at one side, and desks arranged in many lines.

If there was anything worse than being the new student, that was probably the fact of starting in the middle of the school year, at the beginning of April. And also having a presentation like this. Maybe it was the normal thing in this place, but I honestly would have preferred doing what people did in normal school. Getting in class with the rest of my classmates and sit on a corner, pretending I didn’t exist. Basically, the same I did on my other school.

But no. I suddenly felt all of my classmate’s eyes on me. And I couldn’t help to look back at them.

Almost all of them seemed very normal, without any physical aspect different of any normal person except, for example, a girl without a hand, or a boy who had a cane. Well, I don’t really think I seemed like one of the students of a special school for disabled kids, either.

“His name is Eren Jaeger. He’ll be with us for the rest of the scholastic year."

Simple and clear. Just like every sign on this place. But in fact, I think that’s exactly what I would’ve said. After blinking for a second, I gazed again at my new professor.

“There’s a seat reserved for you beside the window. You can sit there." He answered my question before I had ever questioned it. “If you need anything, you can ask Arlert. He’s the class rep."

My eyes followed the way Mr Zakarius’ finger was pointing to. Next to the empty desk beside the window that was going to become mine, there was a boy looking at me with his arms crossed and a large face. But I think that last was just from born. His gaze felt like he was analysing me, and he smiled when he noticed I was looking at him.

I don’t know why, but I had the feeling if I was to ask that Arlert boy for help, I’d better just get lost and end up waking up inside the swimming pool.

Just right next to him, however, was a boy who seemed to look at me like I was some kind of new toy. Half a head smaller than Arlert, and with a blonde hair moving just like the emotion on his eyes.

I glanced again at the teacher. And got no answer, so I just walked to the desk I was supposed to sit without a word.

“Hey!” Just after I had sit, Arlert greeted me very friendly. Now I knew why he was the class rep. He seemed to be just like that type of person who can get along with everyone, and that makes everyone think he’d be the best to represent the class. Behind him, the other boy who had been staring at me greeted me moving his hand effusively, with a big smile on his face and a really happy expression.

“Hey.” I responded simply. But that was just the kind of things I couldn’t help to do. Sooner or later, I was going to have to talk with this guy. But for now, he could wait. At least, until Mr. Zakarius ended explaining some things I wasn’t really paying attention to.

But however, it turns out that hour was homeroom class, so just ten minutes after I had arrived, my unescapable fate and seat neighbour was waiting for me. I had to socialize.

“So…” Arlert turned towards me before I could have time to make up any excuse to not talk with him. “Transferred student, hm? On the middle of the year? I suppose you’d be pretty lost right now.”

I sighed heavily. Well, here goes nothing. “I haven’t been two hours here and I already feel like my head is gonna explode.” I responded. “Actually Arlert, I was hoping you could help me a bit with that… Wait, what?”

Before I could finish my phrase, the guy before me had turned to see the boy behind him, and shared a delightful glance. Then, I realize the boy with the long hair was moving his hands, instead of talking. Sign language?

“I’m not _Arlert_! That’s Armin, the little boy you have here.” This said, the pointed with his thumb to the boy who wasn’t talking. “I’m Jean. And your name was…?”

I opened my eyes filled with surprise, and stared at the boy I had just discovered to be named Armin, who responded with a confused glace cause by my astonishment. No offense, but how was I supposed to go ask him anything if there was something I didn’t know? How could he tell me?

“Heeeeeeeey? Ieeeegah?”

Jean’s voice stuck directly in my brain. In less than a second, I decided that person, without a doubt, was in my list of “irritant” people.

“Jaeger.” I corrected him, with an exasperated sight. “It’s Eren Jaeger."

“Fine, Jaeger!” Jean smiled. “If you need anything, you can ask us. Well, actually you can ask Armin, he’s the class rep. But since he’s mute, I translate everything he says. Oh, but he’s just mute, so he can hear us. Right, Armin? So don’t worry."

Mute? Well, at least that explained why Armin seemed to be the only one signing here. After hearing Jean’s words, he moved his hands again, full of energy.

“If you want to, you can eat with us and we will show you the cafeteria." I was pretty sure that weren’t Jean’s words.

Honestly, eating alone (or with Mikasa, but she just wasn’t here) was usually my first option. And I hadn’t plain to change that when moving to this place. But Armin’s hopeful face made refusing a very difficult and heartless option. “I didn’t really have a plan, so…”

“Then it’s decided!” And now I was pretty sure Jean was the one talking again. “Thanks to you and your presentation, we’d lost half biology and homeroom class, so that’s the least we can do for you.”

When the bell rang, I started picking up the few things I had (a notebook and a pen, which I was putting back into my bag, where I had my wallet), Jean (or was it Armin?) told me it wasn’t necessary. In this school, students stayed on their classrooms and the teacher moved, so it was easier to the people with reduced mobility.

To be honest, that was really convenient. So I left my things where they were and put my wallet on my pocket and followed Armin and Jean outside the class.

Compared to that morning, when no one was around besides me on the hallway of corridors, now the school was full of people everywhere. Even with the clean feeling and people with burn marks, wheelchairs or missing parts of the body, that suddenly seemed a lot more like a regular school.

I followed my new classmates all the way to the cafeteria, was wide and clean as the rest of the school. I observed astonished how the quantity of the food offered highly suppressed the one in any school I had ever seen, until I realized it was for students with special diets or nutritional restrictions. Once more, discovering this fact made everything feel like being again on the hospital, surrounded by tasteless food.

At least I didn’t have any kind of alimentary restriction, except the warning of eating variedly and trying to evade too many grasses, so I just picked up the first pasta plate I saw and continued following Jean and Armin to a free table.

“So… Do you have any questions? Any at all? The food here is pretty neat, just in case you’re wondering if this is like hospital food all over again”. Jean talked to me just after I had sat, beside Armin, as he was sitting in front of him.

“Ah…” I thought for a minute. And then I realized I didn’t know anything. The only things I knew, were where the cafeteria and my classroom were. Nothing else. “I’ve been told I have to go see the nurse. Where is it?”

They looked at each other for a moment, and Armin signed something I obviously didn’t understand. But I somehow got the feeling Jean didn’t translate it completely, because I heard something similar to a soundless voice coming from the smallest of us.

“The nursery, yeah… It’s just behind this building. It’s impossible not to see it, and it’s exactly the same as this one." After this, I felt he wasn’t saying something he was supposed to say. Maybe by the look he gave to Armin. So I raised my eyebrows, urging him to go on. “But you see, Eren… We don’t think you should go just after class. Because today is Thursday, right? Then you should… I don’t know, walk around, get to know the place… Just until five or six."

I frowned, honestly confused. First they told me to go immediately after class, and now I Jean was telling me to wait. I wasn’t exactly the kind to listen to a teacher before a student, but… “Why? Is there any kind of… monster on the nursery or something?” I asked, sarcastically. Jean and Armin gazed at each other again, and slightly laughed.

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that."

After a moments of not understanding what I supposed was an inside joke, Jean and Armin exchanged a few signs (words? Sentences? Honestly, I had only seen sign language sometimes on TV, so I couldn’t really understand absolutely nothing) they didn’t bother to translate, and then started advising me about a few things. Like where the dorms were, or commenting about some teacher I still didn’t know. Before that, the conversation became pretty normal, and we talked about the weather or football (which no one of us followed, actually).

When the bell rang again, announcing the end of the lunch break, we left our food and went back to our class. They told me to be ready for Mr Bossard’s physics class. They said he was the kind of teacher you can’t be indifferent to, and he had a tendency on biting his tongue, literally.

It had been four months from the last time I went to school, so it’s not strange that at the end of the day I felt like my whole body had gained three time its weight, and my head felt like it was going to explode.

“Are you gonna do anything now?” Jean asked me while I was trying to recover from the exhaustive class of English we had just have.

“I was planning on going to my room." I answered. “I have to unpack my things, and maybe I should try to familiarize with some of my neighbours or something”.

They looked at each other and sighed. I didn’t need Jean to translate that. “Then we’ll see you tomorrow. Have luck!”

Armin shook his hand as effusively and happily as he did when he first saw me, and they both disappeared from the classroom door, talking in signs.

Well, I guess I should get going too. I finished picking all my things and followed the same path as I had a few hours ago, to get into the cafeteria. But this time, going to the big park that was the garden of the school.

I had said I was going to my room, but just when I saw all the green on the outsides of the school, I changed my mind on a second. My mind had been too busy during the previous hours to realize it, but going to my room meant unpacking all my things. And that meant I had to face the unbreakable fact that I had no turning back. I was trapped in that place until I graduated.

It also hurt me to think that when I opened the strange door of my room I wasn’t going to see Mikasa, or my parents. Who knew how many time I had to wait until I could see their faces again, without a computer screen.

So when I was facing to the east, I turned around and changed my destination.

Just like Jean and Armin had told me, that place looked exactly the same as the one I had just been in. The only difference was that, in this case, the sign said “Nursery”. However, seeing a building just for the famous 24-hours medical services didn’t help at all with thinking at this as a normal school.

I opened the front door carefully. Just like the classroom building, the inside of this place was so modern and different to the outside, that I had the feeling I’d just been transported to another place. On my right, there was a small reception window and a few seats, like a tiny waiting room. Although right now, the only people I could see on all the long hallway were the receptionist and me. I tried not to think on Jean’s comments about a monster on that place.

When I told my name to the girl on the reception, she asked me to go straight to the fourth room to the left, which seemed to be the one opened for anything if there wasn’t any kind of emergency, or anyone had a date or revision that day. I nodded and walked to said room.

I checked I was in the right one. On a side to the door, a small sign marked “Consult”, and under it a paper sheet, which was supposed to change depending on the doctor inside. I didn’t really care to read the name. I knocked two times, and then came in.

All the feeling of cleaning I had seen during all my stay on the hospital could not compare with what I felt just with peeking my head inside the room. Immediately, the smell of detergents and cleaning products filled me harder than when my mom decided to make a New Year’s cleaning on the house. Although when I completely went inside the room, I realized it wasn’t just the smell. The floor, the windows, the beds, or the big iron table were all so clean and tidy it seemed like I had just entered a photography on a decoration magazine.

The only thing breaking the picture was the man sitting behind the table. He was wearing a big, white coat, something normal as I supposed he’d be the doctor. But behind it, he was wearing black clothes, and a shirt of a group I couldn’t recognize. His two small eyes were exanimating a paper he had on his hands, and the way he was sitting on that huge, black chair made him look not bigger than a child’s stature.

“Ah…” I tried calling the attention of that person, but for some reason the enormous feeling of cleaning had intimidated me a bit.

The small eyes moved from the paper, to stare into mines.

“Close the door."

I obeyed immediately, maybe because of the tone of the voice that had just “welcomed” me.

“Sit down."

Once again, I did as he said and sat on one of the two seats before him, making sure I’d lift the chair before doing so, just as a precaution my body did before having the time to think about it. “Do what do you want?”

“I… My name is Eren Jaeger. I just got transferred, and was told to come here…”

“Jaeger." The doctor repeated my name, like it was some kind of strange word (which it actually was). He then left the paper on the table, so I could see the worst photo I had ever take in my whole life. I couldn’t help but feel really embarrassed for the kind of first impression I might had given to him with my face on that photo. “I was just reading your files. Chronic heart arrhythmia and congenital heart muscle deficiency, no?”

I felt sick when I heard those words. I supposed I couldn’t complain, though, after being all that day doing it unconsciously with the people I saw. But I hated the idea of someone referring to me by my condition, not by my name.

I nodded slightly.

“My name’s Rivaille. If you can’t pronounce it you’ll call me Levi, that’s what people do.” I think that was a presentation. “You’ll be on my charge as long as you’re here." He looked again at the papers with my terrible photo. “I’m sure you have heard it a million time, but in your condition, it’s better if you don’t do any kind of hard sport. But you can do something like swimming”. I nodded. Of course I already knew that. And even though I’d always been a very active person, it’s not like I was a huge fan of any sport, so I didn’t really care saying goodbye to P.E. classes. “Blablabla, don’t forget to take your pills at morning and night and you won’t die. You already know the rest, so that’s all."

That was all? To be honest, I was expecting it to tell things a bit more… assertively, coming from a school doctor.

“That is all?” I repeated.

“Here doesn’t say you’re deaf, so don’t make me repeat myself." After glancing at me directly in the eyes, he stood up a bit. He took one of the papers carefully piled on the corner of the desk, and he started writing very slowly. When he had finished, he lend me the paper and I stared at it, frozen by surprise. If I hadn’t seen him writing just a second ago, I would have sworn it was a printed paper. “Come here in three days so I can check you, at the same time. To see how you get used to the change and shit. Then you will have to come once in a month to check everything’s fine. If you suddenly feel sick, this place is opened all day and night."

I nodded rhythmically at his words, until the silence made me read the paper on my hands. “Is this the reception number?”

“It’s my number. If there’s any emergency, call. But don’t you dare calling me for a freaking headache."

I nodded once again. And before doing so, it was like if Rivaille’d completely forgot (or ignored) the fact that there was any human being on the room besides himself. With such a cold goodbye, I went out the room and took a big breath, exhaling everything that wasn’t chemicals from the cleaning products.

I think I started to understand what Jean and Armin had mean with the monster of the nursery.

By the time I’d get o the dorms, I realized that I had definitely lose my sense of time on the last four months. It was already dawn when I asked for my room, and in no more than an hour, they’d serve dinner.

142\. That was the number marked on my room’s key. It was located on a small corridor, on the ground plant, and at the right of the main hallway that connected with different elevators and ramps. Just when I got to the one that was going to be my room from that day on, I felt that I could maybe rest a little bit at last.

“Oh… Hi!”

Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Just before I could even puck my key on the frame, I heard someone behind me. When I turned around, I discovered it was possibly the tallest person I had seen all over the place. But it’s possible my perception could be a bit distorted by the fact the last person I’d talked to was Rivaille.

“Are you the new boy? Ah, I didn’t meant it like that, I just…” Even thought he was huge, the boy seemed pretty nervous. “You just got transferred?” He finally asked after moving a bit his gaze, everywhere but me.

“Ah… Yeah. Yeah, I’m Eren." I introduced myself, pointing at the room of my room. The tall boy showed a gentle smile.

“I’m Berthold. I live just in front of you." He moved aside to show me his room, number 146. “Ah, and beside you, that’s Ymir. And in front of her, Reiner”.

I looked the way Bertholdt was pointing to. First, room 140. And in front of it, 144.

“Ahm… Thanks, but the truth is right now I’m too tired to try a touristic route…”

“Ah! No, no! I didn’t mean it like that!” It was incredible how nervous a person his height would get, moving his hands like he had said something incredibly embarrassing. “But... If you just need anything, you can call my room. But I’m usually with Reiner, so… You should knock first."

I didn’t really understand the meaning of that last warming, but I accepted it moving my head.

“Thanks, I guess."

This said, I finally got into my room.

The first thing I noticed was that all my things had already been unpackaged, and everything was on my closet, or my desk. Furthermore, a school uniform (nothing really complicated, just a white shirt with the school symbol on its heart and a pair of black trousers) was outside the closet.

I didn’t took the time to inspect the rest of the room, so I just lay down on the bed. White walls, white celling, ugly sheets… That room was impersonal. It was no one’s. Just like my room back at the hospital. Well, at least now I had my own bathroom.

I moved my head and looked at the nightstand, where an inhuman quantity of pills were piled. All of them, marked with my name.

“Eren Jaeger. One pill to stay alive."

It wasn’t exactly what was written on them, but I knew that was what it meant. On the table, there was also a note left by my family. I didn’t even bother looking at it. I wasn’t ready for whatever they had to say as a farewell on that little paper. Not yet.

I sighed once again and put a hand on my hand, trying to think of everything. All that had happened today, the sign language, Rivaille’s words, my new neighbors… Too many things were happening all of a sudden, so rapidly I stopped feeling hunger, even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to miss dinner on my first day.

I gave myself a minute to breath, and then I just simply let today’s events, and probably future events to take my whole mind and body, until the left me completely exhausted.


End file.
